SAN FRANCISCO -- After surgery earlier this month to eradicate a bacterial infection in his right knee, Giants slugger Barry Bonds said Friday night that he was more concerned with living his life, at this point, than his possible return to baseball.

"Right now, all I care about is my health. This infection has gone way beyond baseball," Bonds told MLB.com and ESPN in a lengthy interview while sitting by his locker hours before the Giants played the A's at SBC Park. "This isn't 'When are you coming back, Barry?' This is a health issue more than a baseball issue."

Bonds wouldn't rule out playing sometime this season, and Giants trainer Stan Conte said, "There's a possibility we will see him sometime this year."

But it was clear during the interview that purging the last strains of the infection was the most important element of the process right now for Bonds, who later ended his self-imposed ban and talked to a number of other members of the media.

Asked if the fans would see him on the field again this year, Bonds said: "I don't know. I just want to be healthy to be with my kids. I want to be able to go skiing with my kids. I want to be able to not have my little daughter, at 6 years old, outrun me. I want to do everything I can to get back out there on the field with the boys. But I need to get rid of this infection first."

On Friday, the Giants moved Bonds, who has had his right knee surgically repaired three times since Jan. 31, to the 60-day disabled list from the 15-day DL. The move cleared a spot on the 40-man roster to make room for infielder Brian Dallimore, who was called up from Triple-A Fresno when outfielder Marquis Grissom went on the DL with a knee contusion.

Bonds is eligible to be activated anytime after June 1, but right now that date is purely academic. He slowly began range-of-motion exercises on the knee again Friday, but is weeks away from any taxing exercises that can ready him again to play baseball. Bonds added that he's also had his knee drained of fluid twice since the last procedure.

"His knee is a little swollen, which is not unusual," Conte said. "You can't go back to the original Jan. 31 surgery as a starting point. That now is 2 1/2 weeks ago. I wish I could give you some kind of general timeframe for his return, but it would be irresponsible. It really would."

Bonds was taking antibiotics intermittently through an IV until Monday, he said. He wore the line, which was placed in his right upper arm, 24 hours a day for two weeks after the May 2 surgery, and is now on a tract of daily oral antibiotics, which could last as long as another month.

The idea is to eliminate the last strains of the bacterial infection, Conte said.

"My opinion is that we're seeing the light at the end of tunnel, which is good," he said. "But you know the old saying, 'A light at the end of the tunnel could be a train coming the other way.' We have to be careful and we have to stay the course. It has to be controlled.

"It's important to remember that this was not a normal arthroscopy for a meniscus tear. We have to eradicate every little bacterial bug. If there's one little bug left over on this thing, it will grow back and reoccur."

To that end, the doctors overseeing Bonds' care are doing multiple blood tests and cultures to judge the level of the infection.

"All standard stuff for this kind of infection," Conte said. "All of which we're way down the road on."

Bonds said a high level of white blood cells, consistent with the body fighting an infection, were found in a test taken during a visit to Dr. Lewis Yocum, the Angels' orthopedic surgeon, in Los Angeles late last month. At the time, Bonds also had fluid drained from his knee that, when tested, also substantiated the diagnosis.

The next day, the knee was then athroscopically flushed with antibiotics and the two-week span of IV drip began.

Bonds said the constant intravenous flow of antibiotics made him tired and weak.

"I thought I was going to die," Bonds said. "It made me so sick. I just slept for days."

A bacterial infection, left unchecked, could result in the loss of a limb, said several medical studies about knee surgery, adding that a post-operative cycle of antibiotics could last up to six weeks.

Barry Bonds  /   LF
		Born: 07/24/64 Height: 6'2" Weight: 230 lbs Bats: L / Throws: L More info: Player page Stats | Splits Gallery Team Site | Shop

Bonds acknowledged that that he could have lost part of the leg if the infection had invaded the bone.

"That's a possibility. If you get a bone infection they have to cut off your bone," Bonds said, indicating the motion with a hand chop to his right knee. "This is very serious stuff."

Bonds became alarmed last month because the knee was consistently swelling. He had made little progress in his rehabilitation since the March 17 surgery and acknowledged that the knee "just didn't feel right" as he was trying to rush back during the early weeks of Spring Training with daily batting practice and field sessions at Scottsdale Stadium.

"I knew something was really wrong back then," Bonds said. "My body doesn't react like that. When I had [left] knee surgery back in October, I was running again in three days. I wasn't responding the way I normally respond. I know my body better than anybody. So I knew something just wasn't right."

Bonds, who will be 41 years old on July 24, has 703 career home runs, 11 behind Babe Ruth's 714 and 52 behind Hank Aaron's career record of 755. He led the National League with a .362 average last season, adding 45 homers and 101 RBIs and also walked a Major League-record 232 times (120 intentional) on the way to his record seventh NL MVP award.

During the first 19 years of his career, Bonds had never missed this much time because of injuries, although in 1999, he played in just 102 games, because of a groin problem, right knee inflammation and a left elbow injury. He had surgery on the elbow and his first of four arthroscopies to remove meniscus from his right knee that year.

Bonds declined to place the blame on anyone for his current predicament. He said the infection may have happened from "open water, like being in a whirlpool or a therapy pool."

"For some odd reason, water got in my knee and developed the infection," he said. "How? We don't know."

Conte said that the doctors are analyzing different scenarios to determine the reason for the infection, primarily so it doesn't happen again. Conte said there was no tissue damage and that Bonds' knee joint was in about the same condition as it has been since additional lateral meniscus was removed from the knee in March.

"The origin is under investigation," Conte said. "We're looking at all possibilities. Organisms live in a lot of different places and can be caused by a lot of different things. Right now, we don't have an explanation of where the infection came from and we may never. But I think we have a good explanation why he didn't progress."